Thirteen Government ministers and senior Conservatives have today committed that every region, group and recipient of EU funding will continue to get that money after a ‘Leave’ vote in the EU referendum. In an open letter, the signatories - who include Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Priti Patel -  assure those people and organisations who currently receive money from the European Union that their funding is safe if we Vote Leave.

In the letter they say:

‘There is more than enough money to ensure that those who now get funding from the EU - including universities, scientists, family farmers, regional funds, cultural organisations and others - will continue to do so while also ensuring that we save money that can be spent on our priorities.

‘If the public votes to leave on 23 June, we will continue to fund EU programmes in the UK until 2020, or up to the date when the EU is due to conclude individual programmes if that is earlier than 2020.

‘We will also be able to spend the money much more effectively. For example, some of the bureaucracy around payments to farmers is very damaging and can be scrapped once we take back control.’

 

The UK will have more than enough money to ensure that those who currently receive EU funding will continue to do so after we Vote Leave. We can take back control of how UK taxpayers’ money is spent, improve funding mechanisms to suit the needs of the British people, and spend the extra money we will get back on our priorities like the NHS.

The signatories warn:

‘Many areas have seen recent falls in EU funding. The value of agricultural support is in decline and EU structural funds have been cut back significantly. The real danger to current recipients of funding from the EU institutions is that if we vote to remain the EU will further reduce their funding.

‘After protecting those now in receipt of EU funding, we will still have billions more to spend on our priorities. We propose that at least £5.5 billion of that be spent on the NHS by 2020, giving it a much-needed £100 million per week cash transfusion, and to use £1.7 billion to abolish VAT on household energy bills.’

Full letter:

It is important that people and organisations now receiving funding from the European Union know that their funding is safe if we Vote Leave on 23 June.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the official bill for our EU membership in the last year for which we have figures was £19.1 billion - that amounts to over £350 million each week.

We get some of this money back, partly through a negotiated rebate and partly through payments to farmers, universities, regional funds, cultural organisations, and others. Our net contribution to the EU budget is £10.6 billion. We have no control over much of the money spent by the EU in Britain.

Further, we cannot count on the rebate. It is negotiated with the other member states. Its importance is diminishing. The EU budget and our contributions to it are forecast to increase over the next decade as they have continually since we joined the Common Market in 1972.

There are of course some benefits from the EU. There are also many other costs, direct and indirect, of EU membership on top of our official contributions to the EU’s budget.

For example, the UK is set to pay out between £7 billion and £43 billion by 2021 in tax refunds to big businesses which have successfully used the European Court and EU law to escape taxes lawfully imposed on them in Britain. If we stay, these bills will be paid for by British taxpayers on P.A.Y.E. instead of that money going to public services. If we Vote Leave, the Government will pass legislation to prevent these payments being made so that taxpayers are not given these huge bills.

We can also restore our taxation of offshore companies set aside by the European Court, a decision which costs British taxpayers over £800 million each year. There will be many other savings, including from reforming EU procurement rules that add costs and delays to building schools and hospitals.

It is therefore clear that there is more than enough money to ensure that those who now get funding from the EU - including universities, scientists, family farmers, regional funds, cultural organisations and others - will continue to do so while also ensuring that we save money that can be spent on our priorities.

If the public votes to leave on 23 June, we will continue to fund EU programmes in the UK until 2020, or up to the date when the EU is due to conclude individual programmes if that is earlier than 2020.

We will also be able to spend the money much more effectively. For example, some of the bureaucracy around payments to farmers is very damaging and can be scrapped once we take back control.

The funding system for scientists is also unnecessarily bureaucratic. As the Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim said: ‘I can offer no nice words for the EU framework programmes which ... can be praised only by Europhobes for discrediting the whole idea of an effectively working Europe.’ After we vote leave, it should be a priority to increase funding for science and fix problems with the funding system, not all of which are the fault of the EU.

Many have claimed that there would be an immediate blow to the British economy if we take back control. But the Chairman of the IN campaign itself, Lord Rose, admitted:

‘Nothing is going to happen if we come out of Europe in the first five years… . There will be absolutely no change… It’s not going to be a step change or somebody’s going to turn the lights out and we’re all suddenly going to find that we can’t go to France, it’s going to be a gentle process.’

Many areas have seen recent falls in EU funding. The value of agricultural support is in decline and EU structural funds have been cut back significantly. The real danger to current recipients of funding from the EU institutions is that if we vote to remain the EU will further reduce their funding.

After protecting those now in receipt of EU funding, we will still have billions more to spend on our priorities. We propose that at least £5.5 billion of that be spent on the NHS by 2020, giving it a much-needed £100 million per week cash transfusion, and to use £1.7 billion to abolish VAT on household energy bills.

Overall, it is clear that if we Vote Leave we can take back control of British taxpayers’ money, protect funding for those who now get it from the EU, and improve the funding mechanisms so that money saved gets to the frontline. In particular it is clear that scientists and universities should expect that funding will be much more generous after we take back control and give them the priority they deserve, and which is so important for learning and scholarship as well as our future prosperity and security.

Yours sincerely

 

Julian Brazier

James Duddridge

George Eustice

Michael Gove

Chris Grayling

Boris Johnson

Penny Mordaunt

Priti Patel

Dominic Raab

Iain Duncan Smith

Desmond Swayne

Theresa Villiers

John Whittingdale

 

Notes to Editors

Every week, the UK pays over £350 million into the EU. A fraction of this money is returned to some people in the UK, either in the form of the rebate-grant or in the form of CAP payments/regional funding. Regional funding comes through two programmes: the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF). There is a Cohesion fund as well, but the UK does not receive any money from it (European Commission, link).

The amount allocated to via the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF) in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is extremely small, relative to UK payments. The amount for the 2014-2020 period is set out below: 

Regional funding from EU
Area	Receipts (€)	Receipts (£)
England	€6,937,167,339.00	£5,383,491,649.08
Scotland	€894,628,004.00	£694,263,544.93
West Wales and the Valleys	€2,005,850,747.00	£1,556,612,406.49
East Wales	€406,624,508.00	£315,555,259.97
Northern Ireland	€513,382,726.00	£398,403,481.30
UK (Total)	€10,757,653,324.00	£8,348,326,341.77

 

Source: HM Government, 30 March 2016, link; HMRC, 26 April 2016, link.

 

This is a tiny fraction of the total amount that the UK is set to give to the EU over the same period:

Forecast UK payments (£m)
	2014-5	2015-6	2016-7	2017-8	2018-9	2019-20	Total
Gross	18,220	19,073	18,984	18,031	18,950	19,877	113,135
Net	8,794	10,787	9,711	8,363	9,341	9,643	56,639

Source: HM Treasury, December 2015, link.

 

Vote Leave’s spending pledges have been based on using the net savings from the UK. This means that the UK can easily afford to honour all of the £8.3 billion payments that have been promised to the UK. The EU offers no guarantees for any regional funding after 2021 (when the seven year budget expires). As the pro-EU Northern Ireland Minister, Ben Wallace, has admitted, ‘I cannot guarantee that past 2021’ (Evidence to Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, 23 March 2016, link). It is safer to take back control and have funding decisions after this date made by people we can vote out rather than trusting unelected officials in the European Commission.

 

Annex: Regional funding to be matched in England

The Government has provided a regional breakdown of where English funding will be placed for most of the funds allocated to England:

Regional funding from EU in England
Area	Receipts (€)	Receipts (£)
Black Country	€176,600,000.00	£137,047,959.03
Buckinghamshire Thames Valley	€13,800,000.00	£10,709,296.91
Cheshire and Warrington	€141,600,000.00	£109,886,698.74
Coast to Capital	€67,000,000.00	£51,994,412.54
Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly	€590,400,000.00	£458,171,659.16
Coventry and Warwickshire	€135,500,000.00	£105,152,879.09
Cumbria	€91,000,000.00	£70,619,276.73
Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire	€244,000,000.00	£189,352,785.97
Dorset	€47,100,000.00	£36,551,295.98
Enterprise M3	€45,500,000.00	£35,309,638.37
Gloucestershire	€38,100,000.00	£29,566,971.91
Greater Birmingham and Solihull	€254,800,000.00	£197,733,974.86
Greater Cambridge & Greater Peterborough	€75,200,000.00	£58,357,907.81
Greater Lincolnshire	€133,000,000.00	£103,212,789.07
Greater Manchester	€413,800,000.00	£321,123,700.14
Heart of the South West	€117,800,000.00	£91,417,041.75
Hertfordshire	€69,200,000.00	£53,701,691.76
Humber	€102,000,000.00	£79,155,672.82
Lancashire	€265,200,000.00	£205,804,749.34
Leeds City Region	€389,500,000.00	£302,266,025.14
Leicester and Leicestershire	€125,700,000.00	£97,547,726.21
Liverpool City Region	€220,900,000.00	£171,426,354.18
London	€745,400,000.00	£578,457,240.42
New Anglia	€94,100,000.00	£73,024,988.36
North Eastern	€537,400,000.00	£417,041,750.74
Northamptonshire	€54,800,000.00	£42,526,773.24
Oxfordshire LEP	€19,300,000.00	£14,977,494.96
Sheffield City Region	€207,200,000.00	£160,794,660.87
Solent	€42,900,000.00	£33,291,944.75
South East	€185,100,000.00	£143,644,265.09
South East Midlands	€87,900,000.00	£68,213,565.11
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire	€160,900,000.00	£124,864,193.70
Swindon and Wiltshire	€43,400,000.00	£33,679,962.75
Tees Valley	€201,700,000.00	£156,526,462.83
Thames Valley Berkshire	€28,500,000.00	£22,117,026.23
The Marches	€113,300,000.00	£87,924,879.71
West of England	€68,300,000.00	£53,003,259.35
Worcestershire	€67,800,000.00	£52,615,241.35
York and North Yorkshire	€97,100,000.00	£75,353,096.38

Source: HM Government, 30 March 2016, link; HMRC, 20 April 2016, link.